In this article we will go over all the many styles of bangers and how to use them. Bangers come in all shapes and sizes just like people with no one being the best banger, but more what is your preference. Some bangers do perform much better than other bangers and will till discus why this is. Bangers also come in many different materials like the infamous quartz banger, or the titanium banger and we also have seen borosilcate bangers.
Types of Banger Materials
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The first thing to learn about bangers are that they come in all kinds of different materials. Knowing what material is best for what situation will help you know what banger material is best for you.
Borosilicate Glass Bangers (Boro)
Borosilicate Bangers are the most affordable banger on the market. Borosilicate is very good at thermal shock. The boro banger does not even come close to that of the thermal resistance delivered by quartz. A concentrate user can get by with a boro banger, but one must know how to heat the boro banger slower and allow it cool slower than quartz. These have a tendency to break after some improper use. They are more prone to breaking if you heat them up and drop in cold concentrates causing thermal shock to the boro banger. The borosilicate banger cannot withstand frequent heating and cooling like quartz bangers and tend to crack and chip without much cause.
Quartz Bangers (Fused Quartz)
American made quartz bangers like Whitney Harmon or Joel Halen are the Cadillac of the dabbing community with the price tag to match. The “banger” style is most popular among dabbers. Knockoff Chinese composite quartz gets sold as such but is also passed off as made in the U.S.A to many unsuspecting online shoppers. This does not mean that foreign quartz is bad, just that some companies try to pass off poor quality quartz as good. From what we have found only clear fused quartz will last and last making the quartz banger the best glass banger. Next, to a vaporizer, quartz bangers offer the cleanest taste and is preferred by most serious concentrate connoisseurs that are not afraid of a torch. A great test to know if your banger is high quality fused quartz is to heat the quartz banger up and then submerge it in water. When doing a proper low-temperature dab it is wise to use a tidy tip after every use to clean any remaining fats and lipid in concentrates will keep quartz looking good, tasting great and lasting until somebody drops it on the floor.
Ceramic Bangers
Ceramic bangers are very good for retaining heat. They take a little longer to heat up but they hold the heat longer. This is based on the fact that the more mass, the longer it takes to heat and the longer it holds the heat. Ceramic bangers made from “medical” or “food” grade ceramic are obtainable in every shape and size. When using a ceramic banger or nail you must also heat the banger more gently. If the surface of the ceramic nail is not evenly heated then fragmentation is inevitable. Otherwise, these are designed to last barring any unfortunate drops or rolls off a counter. Ceramic is easy to clean, only requiring the application of direct heat and residual concentrates will disappear before your eye.
Titanium Bangers (Ti)
Titanium bangers or nails are able to endure very high temperature and can withstand any heat a commercial torch can deliver. They are a workhorse and are basically unbreakable, often tasked with bearing constant heat as part of an electronic nail set-up. One thing we have learned is that TI starts to oxidize if it sits at 600°F (316°C) for a long period of time. While this is nontoxic, it does look unappealing. Also available in manual transmission, titanium bangers and nails must be seasoned prior to use to remove any factory finishes and oils. To achieve the desired result heat the dabbing surface to a bright orange and dunk it off in a bowl of water. Repeat several times, then a few more for good measure. Even after being stripped of all impurities the titanium nail still may impart a metallic taste to dabs being taken. One thing to take into consideration is you only need to heat a banger up no hotter than 430 as the last cannabinoid in cannabis is extracted at 428°F (220°C). Keeping a low temperature ensures a clean tasting and less hurtful dab.
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How To Season A Titanium Banger
OK, so seasoning a banger is not the same as seasoning a steak, but both will enhance your flavor. It is highly recommended that you season your titanium banger. Why do this? The reason for seasoning your banger is to remove any oils and whatnot from the titanium banger that are left on from the production process. Seasoning your banger or nail will allow you to fully enjoy the flavor with no worry of dabbing cutting or machining oils.
- Put your Titanium banger or nail on your rig or water pipe.
- With your torch you will want to now heat up the titanium banger dish, (the part you will put your concentrate in). Do not heat up the part of the banger around or in the joint as it could cause your rig joint to potentially break from the heat. We highly recommend using female titanium bangers as titanium expands twice as much as boro glass.
- Let your titanium nail or banger get HOT, the first time it may not glow as red hot as it will in the future. Carbon build up also helps turn the titanium banger orange or red from heating.
- Next, you will want to let your Titanium banger cool. A good fast way is to dump the titanium quartz banger in a metal dish of water. You do not want to use a glass or ceramic dish as it could break from the titanium banger falling in and hitting it. You can also use a pair of tongs to grab the titanium nail and then put it in water. Be careful to not burn your self. It is good to repeat this process 2 or 3 times.
- The next step is optional and many people find this enhances the flavor more. Now you will heat your nail up, but not to hot, just hot enough to let your concentrates melt into the banger. Coat the dish of the banger with your concentrate oils. If the oil is sizzling you have heated up the banger too much.
- To fully season your Titanium banger you will want to repeat step 5 2-3 times.
- Your titanium banger is not seasoned and ready to be your long lasting dabbing banger.
Types of Quartz Bangers Designs
Standard Quartz Banger
The standard quartz banger is the most basic and simple to use of all of the banger styles. The thin-walled banger takes much less heat to reach a proper dabbing temp but cools quickly as well. The quartz dish these are made of can come in many sizes ranging from 14mm outside diameter up to 40mm outside diameter. The joint sizes that standard quartz bangers come in are 10mm male and female, 14mm male and female and also 19mm male and female to fit nearly any rig or water pipe. Perfect for the starting dabber that wants to get into dabbing at an affordable price.
Thermal Quartz Banger
Thermal bangers are an upgrade from the standard style banger. The quartz thermal bangers are designed to help keep your dabs vaping at a much lower temp making the dab experience more enjoyable and less lung irritation. The quartz thermal bangers will retain heat longer as they have more mass, and the more mass the longer heat is retained. This is one of the coolest banger designs we have seen to date with amazing function.
Flat Top Quartz Banger and Insert
The Flat Top Quartz Banger with Insert Cup is a new style of quartz banger that features a unique design to help keep your banger clean. With the flat top banger design, it allows you to use nearly any kind of carb cap to increase vaporization and flavor. The most notable advantage of this quartz banger is the banger cup insert. This allows you to heat the quartz banger and fill the quartz cup insert with your concentrate and then drop it into the flat top banger. Or you can heat the insert and drop it into your nail using a pair of tweezers. We recommend heating your nail as you normally would and then dropping the quartz insert cup into the banger filled with your concentrates. This not only provides amazing flavor and vaporization but it also keeps your flat top quartz banger looking brand new. Another feature of the flat top quartz banger from Elev8 Glass is that it is extra-thick at 4mm. This allows the quartz banger to hold heat longer as the more mass, the more heat retention.
White Bottom Opaque Banger
The white bottom or opaque bottom quartz banger is a newer addition to the arsenal of bangers. It is claimed that this style will get hot faster and hold the heat longer. We feel this to not be true. We have tested it and tested it and it all comes down to MASS. The bottom of the opaque banger is made from basically whipping the quartz so it gets air bubbles. Then the bottom is fused or welded to the side wall or tubing. Air is a great insulator, but it does not hold heat well, so we do not know why so many companies say this opaque white bottom banger holds heat longer.
Quartz Reactor Core Banger
The Quartz Reactor Core Banger is an innovative quartz banger design that incorporates a quartz heat sink in the bottom of the banger bucket giving the quartz banger more mass. The large chunk of fused quartz in the bottom retains heat for a long period of time allowing for longer dab sessions. The quartz heat sink creates more surface are and a heated canal between it and the wall that stays the ideal temperature for longer than typical bangers. The slightly longer heating period makes a low temp dab last longer and tastes better as this type of banger has more mass.
Quartz Trough Banger
The Trough Style Quartz Banger has the largest concentrate cup on any banger we've ever seen. The first design came from Joel Halen and is designed to hold heat longer allowing for longer low-temperature dabs. it's ideal for the person that requires a huge reservoir and likes the big gram dabs. With this trough quartz banger design, you will also need a special carb cap designed to fit over this banger as the standard round carb cap will not work well with this design.
The Terp Slurper banger is all the rage! It works great and is a ton of fun to use! The Terp Slurper banger is designed to be used with a marble cap, a marble to cap the small inner tube, and a terp pearl, or a terp pillar inside the small lower tube. These together move around when you inhale and move the oils around allowing for a nice even hit. Our Elev8 Terp Slurper banger is our own design with the drop-down built-in! This helps keep the concentrates where they should be. The Elev8 Terp Slurper banger is also one of the thickest on the market to hold the heat and deliver a nice hit.
This is Elev8's go at the quartz banger. We feel this is the best banger in the world when you take into the time of use, and the time of cleaning, along with the amazing hit! The Terp Typhoon is designed to spin your concentrates, terp pearls, and any other terp toys at crazy speeds to really help vaporize your oils. Paired with any marble, but more importantly, one of our foreign flower implosion marbles, or our Elev8 Premier marbles, this banger kit will work perfectly for you. Made from nice thick quartz glass to really hold the heat paired with the drop-down that is patent-pending to Elev8, you will not be disappointed.
Thermochromic Banger
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Learn How To Heat A Thermochromic Banger By Whitney Harmon
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First designed by Whitney Harmon, the Thermochromic banger is designed to let you know when to drop your dab. Filled with yellow borosilicate frit to show you the temp. As yellow borosilicate glass heats up, it will start to change from yellow to red. If you follow the charge provided by WH you can find the right temperature dab super easy.
How to Heat and Use a Quartz Banger
When it comes to heating a banger there are a lot of techniques. We will attempt to go over them while talking about the pros and cons of each banger heating method.
Heat And Dab With A Banger (Hot Dabs)
This was done a long time ago when dabbing was filled with ignorance. This is the technique people use to do large dabs. The issue with this method is that we find it makes people cough almost uncontrollably. We find the cause is because at the higher temperatures used the fats and lipids are also being burned off. This is perceived to be the cause of the dab lung or coughing that just hurts. Leave this to the 5 gram dab Instagrammers.
There has been research done on hot dabs that they may not be the best way to consume. To learn more check out this article.
- You will need a banger, carb cap, dab tool, Tidy Tips and torch to attain this dabbing method.
- Use your torch to heat the quartz banger until it starts to glow red or orange (around 20-60 seconds, depending on your torch).
- Let the banger or nail cool so it is no longer glowing.
- Use your dab tool to grab some concentrate (less is more, you can always do another dab) and then put it in your banger dish. As you do this you can start to inhale so as not to let any dab vapor go to waste.
- Take your carb cap now and place it on your banger and inhale. You will see the air coming in will hit the oils and let them vaporize so you can inhale the essential vapor.
How To Do A Hot Dab (Short Version)
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How To Do A Hot Dab (Full Version)
Heat And Cool Dabbing (Low Temp. Dabs) With A Banger
- You will need a banger, carb cap, dab tool, Tidy Tips, timer, and torch to attain this dabbing method.
- Use your torch and heat your banger up until it starts to glow.
- Now you will want to let your banger cool down. This will take about 30-45 seconds, depending on the material of your banger and also the mass of the banger. This method takes a little learning as you will want to find the perfect temperature with your banger and torch. You can use a small sand timer, stopwatch or you can count. Remember what you did so you can adjust letting the nail cool a shorter or longer period of time.
- Now grab your dab tool and get some concentrates on it and put it in your banger.
- Add your carb cap to the top of the banger and begin to inhale. If you notice that your oil is just pooling you have let your banger cool too much. This means wait a little less time next time.
- The ideal temperature for concentrates is around 428°F (220°C) to get full spectrum vaping. You can learn more about the art of vaporizing and the temperatures that compounds vaporizer here .
Low Temp Dabs (Short Version)
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Low Temp Dabs (Full Version)
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Cold Start Dabbing (The Lowest Temp. Dab)
- You will need a banger, carb cap, dab tool, Tidy Tips, and torch to attain this dabbing method.
- This is our favorite method to get the best flavor, use less gas and less time.
- First, take your dab tool and get some concentrates on it. Then put the concentrate into your banger dish.
- Fire up your torch and then begin to heat up the banger. Watch closely so as soon as you start to see the dab melt, you will want to take the torch off the banger. The heat is slightly hotter on the outside of the banger and will reach the inside of the banger soon. The thicker the banger like the Thick Wall Flat Top Banger the more heat it will hold and seems to work best for cold dabbing
- Now take your carb cap and put it on top of the banger and inhale. If you do not get anything, you will need to remember to heat your banger for another second or two. But for now, just add a little more heat to the banger.
- This method will ensure you get a nice smooth flavorful low temp dab every time. Its also great as you do not waste fuel heating a banger to just let it cool
Cold Start Dabs (Short Version)
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Cold Start Dabs (Full Version)
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Dabbing Maintenance
Keeping your banger clean will ensure a wonderful flavorful hit every time. It's a good thing to keep some Q-Tips or better yet some Tidy-Tips around to soak up the fats and lips after each dab. If you want to do a deep clean you can just heat up your dabbing banger hot as can be and let it cool. It's best to clean the banger first still with a Tidy-Tip before this mass heat and cool.
Dabbing Alternatives
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Bangers are great for concentrates but require the ability to guess and not knowing what the proper temperature is. It's not so much that one needs to know the exact temperature, but more what they like for themselves and what delivers that smooth and flavorful hit.
Quartz Dab Banger Alternative (Short Version)
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Quartz Dab Banger Alternative (Full Version)
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The Elev8R Vaporizer is one of our most favorite ways to consume concentrates. Using only hot air to heat the oils up from heating the Elev8R heater with a torch, you will get smooth hits that are less likely to get you coughing. This is due to the fact that the air is much cooler than when one heats the glass up to an unknown temperature, allowing the fats and lipids to actually vaporize.
Using a quartz heater, the Elev8R vaporizer gently heats the air that will pass over a ceramic disc. This disc called a flavor disc allows the oils to spread around the porous ceramic disc offering more surface area for the concentrates. As you inhale the air flows through the heater and warms up the disc and oils allowing them to vaporize and giving you the perfect low temp. dab. The disc will hold on to the fats and lipids allowing you to burn them off or soak them off with alcohol at a later time.
Another great feature to the Elev8R vaporizer is unlike a banger you can also vaporize dry herbs to get a full spectrum plant extraction.
As an all-inclusive package, we really like the ability to take it on the go to replace a nectar collector style dab straw, while having the ability to plug in the rig adapter and enjoy using the Elev8R in your favorite rig.
